läppern

16th century, from now obsolete lappen (“to slurp”) +‎ -ern (iterative suffix), the former from Middle Low German lāpen (“to slurp”), from Proto-West Germanic *lapōn. The modern sense developed via “to eat in small sips”.

Cognate with Middle High German laffen, Middle Dutch lapen (cf. modern leppen, lebberen), English lap. Forms with -pp- also occur in Upper German dialects, where they may be independent onomatopoeias and/or influenced by Romance (cf. Italian lappare).

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɛpərn/,

• Audio:

  (file)

läppern (weak, third-person singular present läppert, past tense läpperte, past participle geläppert, auxiliary haben)

1. (reflexive, somewhat informal) to mount up from small individual amounts to a large sum

   30 Cent klingt wenig, aber aufs Jahr gerechnet läppert sich das.

   30 cents appears to be little, but if you calculate it per year it mounts up.

• Löffel, löffeln

• Kleinvieh macht auch Mist

• “läppern” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “läppern” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon